Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)
- Thread starter yrsillar
- Start date
- Original Fantasy
The mission worked out pretty well.
I have to admit that for this update I'm most looking forward to the Bai Meizhen side eye when we show her our new stuff. Especially after the called shot on the random loot drop.
You just know that the Bai earmark material for a domain weapon the day a new child has their qi awakened and start crafting the weapon as the kid cruises through mid-yellow, carefully aligning the material, design, and even art suite for maximum synergy. Then Ling Qi learns that she needs a domain weapon, shrugs, and a week later an ideal crafting material falls in her lap.
I have to admit that for this update I'm most looking forward to the Bai Meizhen side eye when we show her our new stuff. Especially after the called shot on the random loot drop.
You just know that the Bai earmark material for a domain weapon the day a new child has their qi awakened and start crafting the weapon as the kid cruises through mid-yellow, carefully aligning the material, design, and even art suite for maximum synergy. Then Ling Qi learns that she needs a domain weapon, shrugs, and a week later an ideal crafting material falls in her lap.
- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
I feel like the reason that we choose the new moon quest fits the narrative fairly well. Ling Qi is all about building up a group of friends or a family right now. Choosing to honor a person that has become fairly close to us and helped us understand our other spirit friends seems like a great reason for picking that quest.
- Location
- New Zealand
Not to mention, choosing a patron is certainly important, and it's part of Ling Qi's growth. But it's also worthwhile to remember that the Patron is also a spirit. And Ling Qi actually knows Xin, and probably likes her. Choosing a patron that doesn't precisely mesh with your goals, but who you like on a personal level makes plenty of sense to me.
- Location
- United States of America
I do believe it made narrative sense. Ling Qi has a lot of secrets that she wants to keep close to her chest. She also enjoys exploring and finding hidden treasures and secrets, as evidenced by going through multiple weeks of trying to solve a puzzle box just to see what was inside.
Since the very beginning, we have explored the area around the sect for the secret places. The places of power that can aid us in our cultivation, the treasures and pills that will help in the fight. We grabbed a bunch of stuff from an eternally regenerating lizard just to see what we could do with it.
We've sought out information that was meant to be hidden from our eyes, we've kept secrets from all but those involved, we've explored and acquired sites and treasures.
We like hiding information about ourselves, and we like finding as much as possible about our world. The hidden moon works for us.
Makes an interesting thematic statement, though. The elements of our life most associated with the three choices of moons are: our family, for the Mother, our music, for the Reveler, and our secret from our liegelord, for the Secret-keeper. Walking the third path, however, involves uncovering secrets and unraveling mysteries. So we're making a kind of symbolic choice regarding secrets - but will we tilt towards keeping that secret, or uncovering it?
I really wonder where Ling Qi is on the curve in terms of how deep she's getting into the spirit world. We know she's deep enough that Bai Meizhen worries about it. We don't really see her peers socializing with non-bonded spirits at all, while "chilling with spirits" makes up a decent chunk of Ling Qi's social life. While this could just be Ling Qi's obliviousness we do know that her peers have Inner Sect disciples as their mentors fulfilling the same role that Zeqing does for Ling Qi.
I'm curious if it's more that one person every year gets tangled up with spirits like this or one person every decade. Or maybe it happens once a year but the student only survives every few years or so.
- Location
- scrabbling
The first thing to learn about big quests is that they take very tepid, common denominator choices. It's very rare that questers choose to go outside their comfort zone, since voting is by nature a decision making algorithm that tends very strongly towards safety and mass appeal.
lolno
Ling Qi has gone exploring exactly once: when Su Ling and Li Suyin wanted to go looking around for sites and the crew stumbled on the Vent. (You'll notice that that action was taken early...before the quest got really popular.) Maybe if you want you could include the Golden Fields expedition into that plant monster's cave as an exploration action, but otherwise, no, Ling Qi has not been very exploratory. Every other event has been something that she knew about in advance or received a tip about from someone else who had already done the exploration. Both trials, every sect job, everything relating to Renshu, both of Xin's hints...Ling Qi doesn't explore. She cleans up.
Prescious needs to stop being such an asocial nerd!
Makes some goddamn friends, Zhengui
He's gone out to play with Hanyi on his own!
Well now we have more reason to do it at least.
Family
You know, @yrsillar, while the interlude was otherwise great, one thing that disappointed me was the lack of showing here. Ling Qingge SAYS that she expected Qi to be "not fundamentally different" and those expectations were denied, and she says that "even the authoritative patriarch she recalled from her early memories paled compared to her daughter", but none of this describes HOW. What was it about Ling Qi that her mother found to be inhumanly exceptional? What ABOUT her surpasses the He patriarch?
This was one of the points I was most looking forward to seeing from the interlude, and it's lack makes me sad.
Her daughter had grown.
And how.
As tall as her father had been, with hair that glittered with a beauty beyond that of diamond; skin softer and smoother than silk; and those eyes, like shards of ice! She had become the night sky and winter sun, dark and radiant, awesome and inscrutable. A god, or something much like it.
But when Biyu said, with the solemn disdain of childhood for any divinity not theirs: "Pretty Sister, wan' up," suddenly the god was ten again, small and grubby and anxiously earnest.
"Mother, can I?"
It took a great deal of Qingge's fragile self-control not to smile. Too much, perhaps.
"Mother?" Qi asked, concerned.
Qingge shook her head, voice just slightly hoarse. "Do not worry, it is nothing."
"Mama cries," Biyu said, appallingly matter-of-fact. "But it's seek-wet." Without a trace of shame she then added, pleadingly: "Pretty Sister, wan' up!"
With no other recourse, Qingge took refuge in the familiar patterns of parenthood to hide her mortification.
"Biyu, be polite."
The youngest Ling screwed her face up, but though her lower lip wobbled, did not cry. "Pretty Sister, pwease wan up?"
"Of - of course?" Qi said eyes flashing towards her.
Qingge nodded, her own aimed down, not meeting those of her eldest. She would not be able to bear it, to see pity in her true blue eyes.
But still she saw how, with infinite gentleness, as if she were cradling the most precious of treasures, Qi picked her little sister up.
Biyu giggled and Ling Qi's mouth split into an answering grin. Wind and light danced around Biyu, ruffling her hair and with something akin to the helpless anger Ling Qingge felt when yet another shop, another establishment refused her patronage, but inverted, hatred and desperation and old hurt replaced by something all too different. She had heard of men and women, too long on the edge of starvation, when given too rich fare - eat their fill and die content and imagined she was the same. She longed to reach forward, to place her arms around her little family and make promises she could not keep. A breeze wrapped around her, light as the sun, but as unyielding and unending as the great forests she had witnessed on the trip here.
Ling Qi let Biyu's hands roam exploratively across her face, turning the flawless into the goofy.
"Mother-"
"Yes?"
"You and Biyu will want for nothing, I swear it."
A rebuke - no, Ling Qi was not petty, merely thoughtless. She dabbed her eyes and tried to remember how to smile. "This is enough."
"This is more than enough."
----
Note: Personally, I think that what people want is more suitable for omakes than actual updates. Emotional catharsis at this point is what the audience might want, but I doubt estranged family members reuniting results in a fairy tale. If anything has been consistent about this quest it is that relationships take work and I wouldn't want want @yrsillar to compromise on that.
But omakes get to ignore the long-term in favor of short-term payoffs so here you go.
Edit: I can't be sure of word count seeing as I wrote this on my phone, but my guess is 'pretty dang short.' I don't need points for this one yrs.
Last edited:
Jensaarai
Sing Victory Everlasting
- Pronouns
- They/Them
From what I recall, spirits have always had a presence in LQ's life. I think she mentions once or twice about hearing voices whenever she went near those guardian stones around the town.
- Location
- UK
Meizhen: So you're looking for a flying sword?
LQ: Yeah but only gonna buy a training one for now, I'm expecting to get a better one on a moon quest.
*Meizhen recalls good fortune can only be found, not sought, lesson*
Meizhen: Ling Qi that's not how things work
*one week passes*
Meizhen: THATS NOT HOW THINGS WORK!
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Ye. She was spiritually sensitive in her mortal life, hearing things whenever she neared the edge of town and in dark corners. Given how Xianxia tends to work, spirit touched commoners rapidly advancing is not outside of genre expectations(though it's usually a surprise in universe) and is usually how the "quick rising commoner" happens.
I would not be particularly surprised though to find that the Monsters are also steeped in spirits before they came here, and have likely in some way continued the trend.
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Unlikely at this point given that we have a decent description of him in recent chapters and he came in on a human trade caravan.
- Location
- Staring into the void
A spirit grandparent is still a possibility.
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Possibly, but its much less significant(there's a good chance many common cultivators can share this), and Ling Qi being related to spirits is not really connected to her being steeped in spirits like she is, which is more from politeness and intrinsically understanding that spirits are Big Deals I'd wager.
Less unlikely then you think.
He left alone. As in, Qigge refers to him as a liar and a fool, but there is no reason to call him a fool for leaving on a caravan.
Su's mom has been wandering around and preying on people for centuries. It's not out of the question for a fourth realm spirit to find entry into a city to prey on the mortals. And as long as they don't cause a mess, the local nobility wont even pay attention to them.
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
Or Ji Rong. Like, we know that special ancestry isn't a necessary thing. Both the best talent of the year (Ji Rong) and the best talent of the last thousand years (Cai Shenhua) came from basically nowhere.